sic and poetry; nor could they be much be-hind them in the learning of those times. If Abaris, the Hyperborean, as is generally supposed, was an Hebridean. This celebrated man, being sent by his countrymen ambassador to Athens, travelled over Greece, and from thence passed into Italy, where he became acquainted with Pythagoras. Abaris's knowledge and abilities were uncommon.* Himerius, the orator, says, "he spoke the Greek with ease and purity. That he was affable in conver"sation, expeditious and secret in dispatching affairs; was studious of wisdom, and steady in friendship; at the same time, " cautious 66 66 * O'Halloran claims him for an Irishman, others, ignorant of the early connexion of these Islands with the most enlightened nations of antiquity, have considered Abaris as a fabulous character; while others, who knew not the distinction of the insular Hyperboræans, make him a Scythian, his dress however shewed the contrary. For he came to Athens, holding a bow in his hand, a quiver hanging on his shoulders; wrapt in a plaid; with a gilded belt above his loins, and wearing trowsers reaching from his waist downwards. "By this it is evident," says Toland, “he 66 was not habited like a Scythian, who were always covered with skins; but in the garb of an aboriginal Scot, between whom "and the Greeks there was anciently an intercourse. "cautious and circumspect, trusting little "to fortune." Suidas informs us he wrote many books. This extraordinary personage must certainly have been a Druid, a learned order of men, as ancient as the Brachmans of India, the Magi of Persia, or the Chaldees of Babylon. And, indeed, whoever considers the tenor of their doctrine, will be convinced it came down from Noah and his immediate descendants, at the dispersion. We find in their religion the simplicity which distinguished the Patriarchal faith and worship-one God; an altar either of turf or stone; and a sacrifice. They existed long before Greece could boast of her wise men and philosophers;* and Milton asserts,+ "that writers of good an 66 tiquity, have been persuaded, that even Pythagoras, and the Persian wisdom, "took beginning from the old philosophy "of this island." The See Elias Sched. de Diis Germanis; and Borlasses Anti quities of Cornwall, p. 67. + See his works in quarto, vol. i. p. 238. The early transactions of the northern parts of Europe are not more obscure than the religion they formerly professed. What the Latin and Greek authors have written on this subject, is commonly deficient in point of exactness; yet if we bring together the few short sketches they have préserved on this head; if we compare these accounts with those of the ancient poets and historians of the nations themselves, some light may be thrown to distinguish the most prominent features. Tacitus tells us,* the Germans believed in one God, who was master of the universe, and to whom all things were submissive and obedient. A few plain easy doctrines seem to have comprised their tenets, and those of the other northern nations. They deviated little from the traditions and usages of their forefathers. The farther we go back to the creation, the clearer we discover traces of conformity among the hu man race. But in proportion as we see them * "Regnator omnium Deus, cætera subjecta atque parentia." De Mor. Ger. c. 35. } them dispersed, the more they disagree in opinion and habits. The natives who settled in the southern countries were they who deviated first from the right path, and afterwards wandered farthest from it. These derived from their climate a lively, fruitful, and restless imagination, which made them greedy of novelties and wonders. They had, also, ardent passions, which rarely suffered them to preserve a rational freedom of mind; or see things coolly and impartially. Hence the wild frenzies of the Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks, and others, which, in a manner, entirely effaced all traces of natural religion, while it was preserved, without any material alteration, in the north. There the rigour of the climate necessarily fetters caprice, confines the imagination, abates the violence of the passions, and makes men less subject to levity and change. Nor was it till the Spaniards, Gauls, and southern Britons were subdued by the arms, and corrupted by the luxury of the Romans, that the people of those countries relaxed in principles, and suffered, by degrees, an in termixture termixture of customs, some of them ridiculous, others cruel, in which, by little and little, as it commonly happens, they came, at last, to adopt the idolatry of their new masters. When the Romans invaded Great Britain and Germany, those countries were nearly in the same state of civilization, as Greece in the days of Homer: Under different princes, they were divided into small principalities. They had no historians. All transactions worth preserving, were recorded in verse, which the bards who composed them, and their successors, repeated at feasts or public meetings.* These had made such progress in poetry, as to draw the attention of the Roman historians, and even the admiration of other poets. Thus Lucan. Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremptis Plurima secure fudistis carmina bardi. Phar. lib. i. You too, ye Bards! whom sacred raptures fire, * Strabo, lib. iv. Amianus Marcellinus, lib. xv. c. 9. Who |